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Ask HN: Flowers as a Service? (FaaS)

6 points by harrisonhjones ↗ HN
I regularly purchase flowers for a significant other. I call a local flower shop, give them a brief description of what I'm looking for (she likes pink, hates red, etc), and a budget (I'd like to spend between $40 and $50 including delivery). I give them an address, a CC number, and a desired delivery date. This seems to go over well.

When looking into streamlining or automating this process (automation nerd here) I haven't be able to find a service which fits my needs. My major issue with these services is quality. If the first thing they ask me isn't: "where are we delivering these flowers" I assume they will be shipped from a long distance in a box. I kind of want to be told "hey, we don't have a local florist in that area yet." Quality is my number 1 decision-making factor.

What I'd like to see is the following feature set:

1. Local florist with ratings 2. Specify price range, destination, delivery date, (optional) card message. 3. Specify, in general, what I'd like to see in the arrangement (roses, no roses, spring flowers, etc) 4. A way to rate the flowers received (to help identify issues with particular florists)

Features I don't really care for:

1. Seeing the flowers first in some kind of staged photo

Extra features I would love to see:

1. Support for subscription flowers (send a $50 bouquet every month) 2. Flower gifting (so you don't have to exchange shipping information) 3. Support for alternate currencies / payment methods above CC (bitcoin, venmo, paypal, etc) 4. Automatic reminders for special occasions (valentines day, anniversaries, etc)

I realize my situation may not be "normal" so I thought I'd ask HN:

1. Would people consume an API which would allow you to purchase flowers online with the features (or lack thereof) above? 2. If not, why? Do you need to be able to see the flowers? Perhaps flowers are "too expensive" to automate? Perhaps the purchase frequency is too low for the automation effort? Anything else?

6 comments

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nostrademons
All the major online flower vendors (Teleflora, Proflowers, 1-800-FLOWERS, etc.) work by contracting with local florists. They show you the offerings, including prices, and let you set destinations, delivery dates, card messages, etc. I don't really see how you would differentiate from their offerings.

Indeed, a hack you can use as a customer is to call up the local florist directly and order: you get the exact same product you would through Teleflora etc, but get to cut out the middleman, and the florist will usually give you lower prices.

harrisonhjones
I figured they did (they have to I imagine) but I really wish they would make that more obvious what florist they use. I want a service that adds value (like calling, order placement, but also additional services) but does so in a way that makes it feel like I'm simply ordering flowers from a particular local florist w/o having to call them.

Ideally the prices would essentially be the same (since you are driving business to the florist) but the service should be able to add enough value (by saving time, offering subscriptions, etc) to be able to display the florist info but still attract orders via the site/service.

nostrademons
It's likely that the economics of this don't work out. Most people actually do their online flower ordering by going to Google, searching [flowers], and clicking on one of the top few ads. (Indeed, I know about this because [flowers] was a very common test query we used when working on Google Search - it shows so many ads that if your new feature is going to break layout or look awkward on any query, it's probably [flowers].) In order to get people to click on the ad, you need to do your own branding.

Flower ordering has the same problem as weddings, funerals, job searches, ordering a plumber, etc: it's an event that you do maybe once a year, max. When you need the product that infrequently, it slips out of the consumers' mind, and they don't remember brands. So you can only build a viable business when the product costs enough that you can spend large sums on brand advertising (eg. cars, clothing, divorce attorneys, diamond rings) or large sums on search advertising (eg. [flowers], [mesothelioma], [digital cameras], [bingo cards]). Indeed, one of the main reasons Google has become huge is that they function as an aggregator for all the "infrequently needed, but too cheap to buy superbowl ads" products.

You're welcome to give it a go, though. The local florists would love you; many aren't terribly thrilled about Teleflora stealing all their customers and treating them as a commodity backend provider. It's just that you'll likely find customer acquisition costs way more than you bargain for.

brudgers
Looking at what you are currently doing, the next step is to talk to your local florist.

Will they allow you to set up a subscription with them?

If so, under what terms [e.g. suppose you pay up front]?

Everything else is just a feature. Most of them burden the florist and increase their overhead and risk. Florists are who you need to get to buy in. They're small businesses. They don't consume API's.

Good luck.

harrisonhjones
That true. I think the value such an API / service would provide to florists is that the service / API would:

1. Handle online ordering so they wouldn't have to 2. Drive customers to them

And do so in a way where they could still have a "personal relationship" with the flower purchasers.

The single downside, that I can see, is the whole "reviews" issue (I have no desire to become like Yelp and be known for "shaking down" businesses). I'll have to think about that.

I'll take your advise and talk to a couple florists. I don't think they, the florists, would need to handle the subscriptions. As long as they allowed repeat orders and they handled them independently they wouldn't even need to know it was a subscription. The main thing to discuss would be some kind of discount if the service could guarantee some level of purchasing from the subscriptions.

brudgers
When a potential client comes to me and says give me a discount and I will give you a lot of work, they remain a potential client...only at a much lower voltage.

Anyway, my advice would to learn about the floral industry before thinking about a business model. My intuition is that florists make most of their money most of the time from B2B relationships with businesses such as funeral homes, churches, event planners, etc and that their B2C revenue is mostly centered around Valentines, Mothers Day, and Prom at the local high school.

To put it another way, florists who still exist exist because they have already have a working business model. Any service you provide has to exceed the florist's opportunity cost before it is worth charging even full retail price.